Androgyny (AQA A Level Psychology): Revision Note

What is androgyny?

• Androgyny comes from the Greek ‘andro’ meaning ‘male’ and ‘gyny’ meaning ‘female’ and describes a gender identity that is a balance between masculine and feminine characteristics

• Physical androgyny had been recognised for many years as applying to babies born with genitals of both sexes; however, the psychologist Sandra Bem (1974) was the first to introduce the idea of psychological androgyny and to propose this as a mentally healthy state

• Bem suggested that an androgynous person, who is therefore gender-neutral and expresses themselves uniquely as neither masculine nor feminine, is happier and more fulfilled because they can combine traits from both sexes to adapt to any circumstances, showing ‘sex role adaptability’ across situations (Bem, 1975)

• An androgynous person may dress in loose clothing that hides their male or female characteristics, style their hair in a gender-neutral way and identify as binary

• However, many androgynous people also identify with their sex at birth, but not with the fixed sex-role stereotypes that come with this and choose to live in a more gender-neutral way

The Bem Sex-Role Inventory & measuring androgyny

• Measurement of androgyny is conducted using the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) scale developed by Bem to find evidence to support her argument

• Bem used her university students to assist in choosing the twenty most feminine, twenty most masculine, ten most undesirable gender-neutral traits and ten most desirable neutral traits to make up the BSRI

• The person taking the BSRI is presented with a mixed list of masculine, feminine and neutral traits, numbered 1–60; they then rate themselves for each item on a scale of one to seven

• Participants receive a score for masculinity and for femininity, and the androgyny score can be defined as scoring high in both masculine and feminine items

• The test was revised in 1977 to create four categories of person:

  • Masculine – high masculinity, low femininity.

  • Feminine – low masculinity, high femininity.

  • Androgynous – high masculinity, high femininity.

  • Undifferentiated – low masculinity, low femininity.

An extract from the BSRI (adapted from Bem, 1974).

Research which investigates androgyny

• Bem (1974) used the BSRI in a survey to measure androgyny in over 700  university students, and found 27 per cent of females and 34 percent of males were androgynous, which suggests a large minority of young people in college are mainly androgynous rather than masculine or feminine

• Burchardt and Serbin (1982) used the BSRI and a personality scale to see whether androgyny was related to positive mental health in both normal and psychiatric populations, and found androgynous personalities had good mental health, but so did masculine types, suggesting that masculinity also assists positive mental health  

• Korlat et al. (2022) surveyed a large sample of Austrian school children to investigate relations between adolescents’ gender role self-concept and school-related wellbeing and found that their results supported the androgyny model of wellbeing, showing clear wellbeing benefits of having both positive masculine and feminine qualities in one’s self-concept

Evaluation of the theory of androgyny

Strengths

• Bem views androgyny as a psychologically healthy state and research supports this (see above for examples)

• The BSRI inventory has good test-retest reliability, as it produces consistent results when used on different occasions with the same participants

Limitations

• Masculinity is also shown by research to be advantageous for well-being, so it might be that it is the high level of masculine traits in androgynous people that Is responsible for their mental health, rather than androgyny

• The BSRI inventory may lack temporal and cultural validity  as it was created from data generated by USA university students in the 1970s about what they perceived as desirable characteristics in men and women and these may no longer be relevant today  or in other cultures

Issues & Debates

• Androgyny exemplifies the nurture side of the nature vs nurture debate by suggesting that gender identity and expression are shaped more by social and psychological factors than by biological sex

  • Bem’s view that people can adopt both masculine and feminine traits suggests that gender is learned and flexible, not fixed by biology

• The BSRI is culturally biased, as it was developed in the 1970s based on American university students’ views of masculine and feminine traits

  • Concepts of gender have evolved significantly, and traits seen as “masculine” or “feminine” may no longer apply universally